They'll Never Miss Just One
by meme-asaurus
Summary: Steven takes a Rose Quartz back to Earth from Pink Diamond's zoo. Shenanigans and angst enure. Shenangstigans, if you will.
1. Steven Takes a Mom to Go

The diamonds were distracted. The nearest bubble was three arms' lengths away, and by how stubby Steven's arms were, that was pretty close. If Yellow Diamond could just turn thirty degrees to her right, the bubble would be completely out of view. Steven could make the sprint, teleport the bubble back to the temple on Earth, and run back behind the pillar. Or, he could shapeshift his arm to stretch out to the bubble and _then_ teleport it. He didn't know which method was faster. He was starting to get sweaty and clammy. He wondered how familiar the two diamonds were with a human heartbeat. Would the diamonds eventually notice that two people in the room were hyperventilating, even though that gems didn't need to breathe? Steven didn't know how many opportunities he had, but the sliver of a pessimist within him told him that his chances were slipping away fast.

"Steven, what are you doing?" Greg screamed, but tried to whisper at the same time. Steven had already started to make a mad dash for his target. He had to do it. He just had to. No one gets left behind, not anymore. No more Bismuths, no more Jaspers, and no more Eyeballs. He couldn't save all the roses today, but he'd be damned if he missed the chance to save one.

Yellow Diamond thought that she saw something out of the corner of her eye, and it was enough to make her skip a beat.

* * *

My form explodes out my gem, ready to literally fight for my life. I approach my senses one at a time, making sure everything was formed properly. I might've been cracked. Please, _please_ don't let me be cracked already.

Smell. My nose sharply inhales. Nitrogen. Oxygen. Carbon dioxide. Sulfur? High probability that I was still on Earth.

Touch. The air is dry and hot, suggesting that the sulfur was burning. The floor is even warmer, with a hard, metallic texture.

Taste. Not a priority, but it's nice to see that I have all of my teeth. I will them to sharpen a bit. In fistfights, I was a biter.

Hearing. A voice. Several voices. They're scared. No time to listen, my hearing works fine, and that's what matters.

Sight. The big one. My eyelids shoot open, and I adjust my irises to fit the dimness of the room. I catch the light source: A lava pit. That explains the burning sulfur. Deductive reasoning states-

Oh no.

No diamond was this cruel.

Genocide was one thing, but these, these monsters were actually going to **melt my gem** **alive**. My flail rockets out from the gem on shoulder with a speed I'm pretty sure is faster than light should travel.

I examine the faces my captors. It's four on one. Scratch that, one's a human. Deal with that one first, then-

Wait.

One's a human.

The diamonds don't _employ_ humans. Mmmaybe I should give listening a try.

My captors (rescuers? Interrogators? Rose sympathizers?) are already in retaliation. A runt amethyst has a whip. A fusion (A FUSION?) has gauntlets the size of her head. A pearl has a spear (OH SHARDS, A PEARL WITH A SPEAR), and the human has a shield (THE HUMAN HAS A LIGHT CONSTRUCT WEAPON. WHAT IS MY REALITY HERE?), but specifically-

The human has _that_ shield. From _that_ rose. I take a step back, as if going physically backward would reverse time, so maybe I could think.

I can't tell which one of us spoke first, but I guess it was the fusion (A _FUSION_ , I AM NOT OVER THIS).

"We aren't going to melt you!"

For the next five minutes, for the life of me, I couldn't keep track of what came out of whose mouth.

"Not helping, Garnet!"

"Steven, get behind me."

"Are you with the diamonds?"

"Are _you_ with the diamonds?"

"How long was I out?"

"Where are the other roses?"

"If you're not with the diamonds, then why'd you draw your weapon?"

"Everybody shut up!"

"Where am I?"

"We're the ones that rescued you-"

"Oh, and look how well _that's_ turning out, Pearl."

"What is this place? Why are all these other gems bubbled?"

The human is the first one to get distracted. Apparently, there was a banging on the door that was getting louder and louder without any of us noticing. The human opens the door to a smaller human (I once told Citrine 7TV that I found a human as small as a sandstone once, but she didn't believe me), and they talk for a minute.

"Afternoon, Onion," the light-making human begins, "say, this is kind of a bad time; real tense situation. Maybe you can come over to play in another hour? Sorry, I'm just having Steven problems."

This 'Onion' doesn't look amused, and I get chills. I get the distinct feeling that he'd be more likely to melt me then the gems I'm facing now. He doesn't say a word, and he probably doesn't need to.

"Okay Onion, you drive a hard bargain, but I usually resolve these issues in ten, maybe eleven minutes minimum."

The Onion is pleased and he leaves us to our own devices once more. Somebody coughs on the volcanic fumes.

"I believe we got off on the wrong foot," I understate, using the voice I used when talking to a human that was panicking and had something sharp on hand.

"We are the Crystal Gems," the pearl announces, flourishing her spear dramatically. "We protect the Earth and all its inhabitants!" It sounds heavily recited. Also, it was now safe to say that I was on Earth. After all, I wasn't aware of any space station that had its own lava pit. And if I'm on Earth in a Crystal Gem base, that must mean _Rose 22MY_ was nearby. She probably guessed my feelings about her, and she didn't want to risk me directly attacking her, the coward. My weapon stays firmly gripped in my hand.

"If you're the Crystal Gems, take me to your leader," I counter, feigning skepticism. The amethyst snickers under her breath, but it's the fusion that answers.

"We don't have a leader." That makes me hesitate. On one hand, she could be lying, on the other, 22MY could've been shattered. Either way, the fusion has a face harder to read than an onyx, and those reclusive pebbles covered their whole faces. I examined the other gems for hints. The amethyst (how was she so short? It was cute, but 22MY must be desperate for recruits to take in something _that_ overcooked) was still laughing at some inside joke. The pearl was still hostile, legs wide and knees bent, ready to literally leap at me at any given moment. I knew that 22MY had a pearl that incorporated dance moves into a fighting strategy, but _cracking shards,_ she looked scary. Her stance wasn't fully offensive either, she was ready to push everyone else out of the way to safety just to fight me head on. She even went out of her way to stretch her left leg out far enough to form a make an impromptu fence in front of the human, which, in case y'all haven't forgot, already had a shield. _That_ shield.

Un-cracking-mistakable, it was 22MY's shield. How a human could produce it, I had no idea. Forcefully, I yanked my attention from it and tried to focus on what the human was feeling. Empathetic sensors, don't fail me now. Please, give me something to lead on. I should read the other gems, too. The minds of the fusion and the pearl were a brick wall of hostility, paranoia, and even emotions strong enough to to form words in my head; a continuous march of 'She's not Rose, not Rose, not Rose. She's not Rose, not Rose, not Rose…' The amethyst liked to keep her emotions less complex, and the 'joke' I told her put her at ease. I feel a tinge of familiarity from her, like she's negotiated with hostile gems before, and it turned out well. It's a guess, though. Now to the 22MY-human.

Oh.

Oh wow, this one's a mess. He's scared. He's relieved that I'm safe. He wants to talk to me. He's regretting meeting me. He's hopeful. He's worried. He can't focus on one emotion; can't pick a reaction. He's starting to cry. He doesn't want to face me. He tells himself that he wasn't ready. Reading him is leaving me more confused than before. One emotion gets strong for a sentence.

'Oh god, her dress even has those white frills.'

"Yo," the amethyst interjects, finished her laugh long ago, "do you have random staring contests on Homeworld? I think we drifted off a bit."

The human's mind left me in a daze. "Are you going to be alright?" I ask him. I notice that I got distracted enough to release my flail. How long was I trying to figure out this human? I should start writing a mental list of questions, or else I'm going to lose track. Let's start with the question that the fusion likely knows, though.

"If you don't have a leader," I inquire, ignoring the amethyst's sarcasm, "what happened to Rose Quartz 22MY?"

The human turns to the pearl. "Is that-?"

"Yes, your mother." the pearl confirms.

And, thank the diamonds (for multiple reasons, I might want to hesitate before saying that phrase out loud), they start talking.

* * *

 **AN: 22MY. May 22nd. Earth Day. Apologies if I'm unintentionally butchering the real-life gem classification format.**


	2. Memory Lane is Filled with Landmines

The general consensus was to find a good place to sit and get comfortable before catching me up to speed. Not a good sign, but it's a better situation than the whole melting thing that I first anticipated. That said, I'm starting to wonder what a band of rebels without a proper leader could want, more specifically, what they could want with me. Was I 22MY's replacement? I didn't exactly agree with the diamonds' decision regarding rose quartzes, but I wasn't willing to prove them right by starting another rebellion. Oh shards, what if I'm not the first replacement? What if there was already more than one rebellion? Were any of them lead by any roses that I knew? What do the Crystal Gems do with the loyalist roses? The mental list of questions grows little by little, eating me up inside.

We exit the lava room, entering an entrance to the base. It's mostly made out of wood with cushioned furniture. I have a seat on the couch and my attention sways toward the human. He's trying to bottle up his feelings, the poor thing. Everyone has a seat and the pearl begins. She's less verbose this time, less hammy. She's uncomfortable with retreading these events, and makes glances towards the human to see… if he approves? If it's to graphic for him? If he has questions like I do? It's hard to tell, even when you're a rose.

"Before the diamonds left Earth," the pearl begins, "they released a weapon that eliminated nearly all the gems left on the planet, corrupting their minds-"

"Including 22MY," I finish her thought.

"No," the pearl dismisses with a wave of her hand, "it's more complicated than that."

For the next two hours (a timespan which got very annoying to the every-returning Onion), I hear that sentence more times than I thought possible.

* * *

The pearl, or just Pearl, as she insists, is a great storyteller. The ham returns in full force when describing 22MY, and Pearl even uses her holograms to project the parts she remembers more clearly. The amethyst (just Amethyst. See a pattern here? Their numbers are _that low_ ) gets bored quickly and offers me a delicacy of her own creation to pass the time: Caramel popcorn splashed with motor oil. Not bad. Pearl sometimes goes off topic to describe how awesome 22MY was in every conceivable way, but the fusion (a sapphire and her ruby, calling herself Garnet) brings Pearl back on topic with just the right amount of bluntness. I'm starting to respect Garnet a bit; she makes me laugh. Speaking of which, the Crystal Gems don't really like it when I laugh. No, I'm exaggerating, it's more like they find it really awkward. The human (named Steven, and apparently half-human; I'm still waiting on _that_ explanation) doesn't get it either. Around laugh number four, Amethyst clears things up.

"It's because you sound just like her, dude."

Oh. That _is_ awkward. I brush off the subject by leaning toward Steven and asking, "Is dude an insult or a compliment?"

"Neither, I guess," he shrugs.

* * *

"So 22MY wanted to become a human," I summarize. "Squishy, skeleton on the inside, clothing not attached to her body, all that business?"

Pearl fidgets with her fingers again. "That's a rough way of putting it."

"Not as rough as what those rubies knew," Amethyst blurts. "Couldn't tell a gem from a human." Rubies? Another question for the list.

I have the urge to defend myself. "Hey, I know my humans," I huff. "You don't get to be a zookeeper without knowing a thing or two, you know." Heads swivel in my direction. Oops. Looks like that motor oil loosened my lips a little. From the looks the Crystal Gems give me, I could tell they have a pretty good idea on what a human zoo was and they have very strong opinions on the subject.

Garnet is the first to speak. "I know that we're not finished with our story, but I believe we forgot to ask you who _you_ are. Care to share?"

"Uh, the name's 7PJ," I gulp. My eyes tried to avoid the glares. "I didn't know 22MY personally, but I did know _of_ her. I worked at my diamond's zoo until she was-" I trail off and my voice dies. The realization is coming back to me again. Pink Diamond was gone. Shattered. Dead. She was dead for quite a while now, now that I think about it. I didn't have anywhere else to go now. _None_ of her gems had anywhere else to go. What was the Diamond Authority without Pink Diamond? What was _Homeworld_ like without Pink Diamond? Sure, she didn't control that many planets, but she was a diamond, for crying out loud. I realize that my list of questions was being written long before I got bubbled. Back then, everything was a rush, and I only cared about my facet surviving, but I never knew what we were going to do if we escaped. I'm starting to get choked up. If we escaped, we just would've been, I don't know, lost. We were lost as soon as we lost our diamond. I begin to cry into my hands. A loud, ugly groan crawls out of my throat. I remember back when the earrings for the domesticated humans shut down for an hour, and they thought it was the end of the world. There was nobody to tell them what to do, nobody to be there when they were alone and confused. Is Homeworld like that now for Pink Diamond's gems? I'm starting to wonder if I was one of the lucky ones. Five thousand years without my diamond? Unthinkable.

But you know what else is unthinkable? Becoming all buddy-buddy with the ones that thought shattering my diamond was a _good_ thing. Steven looks uneasy. I look at Pearl with hot tears flowing through my eyes. How _dare_ she idolize a traitor like that?

"We getcha, sister," Amethyst nods, patting my back. "Losing someone that important sucks tits."

"No, you don't," I say. "You never had a diamond. You never knew how Pink Diamond always knew what to do. You knew how kind she was, yet she was so strong. You never saw how much pride she had in owning such a beautiful planet, how much passion she put into it. You don't know how inconceivable it was for a rose quartz to disobey a diamond, much less shatter one. Roses are supposed to be loyal, caring, and quick to learn in a crisis. We're supposed to help gems get back up when they're cracked, not deliver the final blow! 22MY was a disgrace to all of us. I hate you. I hate all of you!"

Or, least that's what I would've said, but it all comes out as three straight minutes of red-faced blubbering. It still feels good to say it.

"Garnet, what do we do?" Pearl asks. Garnet shrugs in response.

"You know what cheers me up when I'm down?" Steven suggests with a raised finger. "I watch Crying Breakfast Friends!" He's straining to keep a smile. I'm in a fetal position on the floor.

* * *

Crying Breakfast Friends is apparently a one-way video communication documenting what the food humans eat do before the humans come and eat it. Apparently, they hurt each other's feelings, cry about it, and resolve the conflict afterward. It's very different from how Amethyst prepared the caramel popcorn. Outside the window, the Earth's sun had set into the horizon, and the stars had become visible now.

Yeah, I know it's a distraction. Pink Diamond would've loved these stories, though. The concept of arguing fascinated her. Whenever two gems of equal stature butted heads, they would try to bring their problem to their diamond. Most diamonds thought that doing this with every other trivial matter was petty and a waste of time, but Pink Diamond _loved_ to see both gems try to paint themselves as the victim. She always listened, and in her own way, she always cared.

Strawberry was in the middle of one of her monologues when out of the blue, Steven says, "Thanks for not trying to kill me."

"Why would I want to do that?" I respond, my eyes still sore and puffy. I was sitting cross-legged in front of the screen. "You're just a human. Kind of. And even if you've got 22MY inside you, you had no control over what she did. What would killing you accomplish? You're weird, Steven."

"It's just that every Homeworld gem has tried to kill me," Steven thinks out loud. "I guess I expected you to hold a grudge."

"Trust me, I can hold a grudge," I lightly snap at him. "I've got a grudge against the diamonds and 22MY. As you've thoroughly explained, you're neither."

"So, uh, does that grudge happen to extend to my mom's friends?" Steven asks. His voice quivers and a bead of sweat trickles down his brow.

"I'm still thinking about that," I say coyly. I knew that my answer wouldn't put him at ease before it leaves my lips. He needed more convincing. "But I'm grateful for you all for saving me. Speaking of which-" I faced Steven directly. "We never got to the part when you found me. Where was that, anyway?"

"The zoo," Steven answers me. "Blue Diamond keeps all the roses bubbled there. It was crazy." I could see his brain rethinking (that was the organ humans use to think, right?) what he just told me. "And it's a very bad idea to go back!"

"How so?"

"Because it's crawling with guards and Blue Diamond visits there regularly!"

"So why didn't this stop you before?"

"Well, because she abducted my dad."

"Dad?" I parrot. "Ah, Greg the human. He must've been important to you."

"PJ, we can't take all the other roses from the zoo," Steven tells me directly. "The staff there would notice in a day, and Earth would be the first place Homeworld would look."

I clicked my tongue. "So what if we weren't on Earth when they came looking?"

"The gems and I can't leave the Earth, it's our home," Steven groans out of explaining the obvious.

"Not we as the Crystal Gems," I say. At this point, I'm the one thinking out loud. "We as in the roses. All the roses and me. We'll never bug you again."

Steven's more firm this time. "I'm not letting you give the Earth the amount of attention we're talking about, PJ."

I decide to change the topic slightly. "So, what's your plan for the humans?"

"What?"

"For the humans. In the zoo. Are you planning to break _them_ out someday?"

"Yeah, I guess. Someday."

Now, _that's_ what convinces me that Steven's a rose quartz. Steven says that he needs to sleep and I spend the rest of the night watching the stars on the porch.


	3. PJ Takes a Stroll Across the Planet

It's a little soon to say that I'm stranded on Earth. If I am to rescue the rest of the roses, I'm going to have to find a way to my old zoo first. The Crystal Gems had to have a way to get there and back in a timeframe that Greg the human could live through, and they must've done it quietly. The most viable method for that back in my day was an interstellar warp pad. And whaddya know, there's a warp pad smack dab in the middle of the base.

* * *

I warp to Earth's interstellar pads and test them to see if they work. It went as well as I expected. After all, if Homeworld didn't go back to recolonize Earth after all this time, it meant that the Crystal Gems didn't just leave a way for any clod with a gem to waltz right down directly to the surface.

That left two ways to reach the zoo, and both were theoretical. One: The Crystal Gems used Steven's rose powers to restore a warp pad, warp to the zoo, and destroyed the warp pad _again_ to cover their tracks. Plausible, but even I didn't know if my own powers could restore a warp pad properly. I never tried it myself, and I wasn't willing to make myself cry simply in order to test that. Two: The Crystal Gems acquired a ship that traveled faster than light and it didn't accidentally time travel by doing so.

Directly asking the Crystal Gems for the way that they got off-planet was directly asking for trouble, so I choose something only slightly less suspicious: Continuing my secret investigation. Now, if I was a band of eco-terrorists that had a spaceship, where would I hide it from the diamonds? Probably in a base. Next problem: I don't know how many bases the Crystal Gems have. There's only four members (five? Four and a half-ish? It's hard to tell with Garnet), so they couldn't need any more bases than the one Steven lets me stay in.

I warp to the prime kindergarten. It's a wasteland, the incubators still intact. For my first time on Earth, I notice how quiet everything is. Usually back at Steven's temple, some kind of wildlife is buzzing a mating call, the local human village is making some sort of racket, or the saltwater ocean is rolling in its constant heartbeat of waves. Here, it's just… empty. It reminds me of the hole I stood in while not in active duty, only since this space is bigger, the silence sounds bigger as well. Does that make sense, silence sounding bigger? It's unnerving, just hearing my footsteps on the gravel and nothing else. Despite that fact that this is where Amethyst came from, it looks like the Crystal Gems abandoned this kindergarten entirely. They didn't even bother repurposing it. I try to imagine what this place was once like just before Pink Diamond's kindergartners were forced to pull back. The incubators, although old and rusted, were positioned like they were in the middle of planting a new batch of amethysts. It's clear the Crystal Gems posed an ambush. Peridots weren't built for combat, so the only ones that were there to fight back were the newly formed quartzes that didn't already leave to where the station that they were made to go. This place was so full of life, but then after a single attack, here it is today, stopped dead its tracks. It's like if a gem forgot how to reform, and she just sat there for all eternity like a motionless stone. It gives me the chills, and I'm getting nowhere by staying here. I go back to the warp pad and think 'anywhere but here.'

I open my screwed-shut eyes and I'm in a human settlement. Sure, I'm surrounded by tall plants with no human in sight, but I notice a teleology to the plants' positioning. They grow too much in straight lines to grow unsupervised. The tall flora surrounding me makes it hard to scan the horizon, so I leap up as high as I can and float in the air. A piece of one of the plants gets ensnared in my hair, so I rip it out. I recognize it from Crying Breakfast Friends, although it lacks a face. It's Corn Cob, a salty old man who found love in his early years, but he broke up with his husband and never got over it. I snap the cob in two and chew on a half to test the texture. It's a lot crunchier than popcorn, that's for sure.

I look down at the ground and scan for spaceships. No such luck, but there's an oddly-shaped building that looks big enough to hide one. There's millions of buildings on this planet that fit that description, but if this one was close enough to a warp pad, it made sense that the Crystal Gems would hide it here out of convenience. The base doesn't look like it has any defenses or-WATER HAND.

* * *

My limbs flail uselessly inside a suspended bubble of water. Both my dress and my hair float freely, obstructing my view constantly. Two pairs of eyes stare at me. Whether they're mocking my predicament or trying to tell if I'm a threat, I don't know. Their voices are muffled by the rushing liquid that fills my ears. One is a lapis lazuli, hence the water trap. The other is a peridot; a very _small_ peridot. Obviously, they might be Crystal Gems as well, but with their respective Blue and Yellow Diamond insignias, I can't be sure. My half-eaten corn cob has its own bubble, presumably because the lapis assumed that I was going use it as a weapon. What are they thinking that I was going to do, turn it into a bomb? Wait, could you do that with a corn cob?

The 'friend or foe' question is answered when Steven runs up to my improvised prison. He says something like "let her down" to the lapis, and she releases me.

"What are you doing here?" Steven asks. I don't know if he's accusing me or is concerned. The lungs that I use for talking are flooded with water at the moment, so instead of an excuse, I cough, spraying Steven in the face with wet corn kernels.

I try again. "I was taking a walk. Exploring the Earth." More water leaks out my nostrils.

"Doubt it," blurts the peridot, her voice loud and flat. I hate her already.

"It's cool Peridot, she's cool," Steven assures her. "She hasn't even tried to kill me."

"The level of your standards never fail to surprise me, Steven," the peridot (apparently just Peridot, as I should've guessed) scoffs.

In contrast, the lapis lazuli (I'm spitballing on either Lapis or Lazuli) appears to believe Steven wholeheartedly, and gives me back my corn with giving Steven, and only Steven, a warm smile. I'm starting to see Steven's place in Earth's hierarchy. He doesn't have authority, he has trust. He gives suggestions instead of commands. It's kind of like how we domesticated the humans in the zoo: Kind rhetorics with a firm motive. Steven probably didn't mean to control gems like that, though.

I mean, probably not.

I try to take my mind off that thought by focusing on Lazuli. From the lapises I met, I understood that they were, I dunno, more peppy than she is. Her face has gone back to a frown, but otherwise is unreadably bland. Besides moving her arms to control the water, her body is mostly motionless. She either doesn't have the energy to move that much, or it's that she doesn't care to. She's almost as lifeless as the prime kindergarten. I wonder if she was purposefully made this way.

She notices that I'm staring. "What?"

"Uh, I'm Rose 7PJ," I say, extending a soaked arm in greeting. I don't know what else to do in this situation.

"Lapis Lazuli 3PS," she says back. She doesn't shake my hand. "My friends call me Lapis."

"Nice to meet you, Lapis."

"My _friends_ call me Lapis. It's Lazuli if you spy on us." Wow. Well, crack you too, Lazuli.

"Lapis, I'm sure she was just curious," Steven says. And with that, I'm done investigating for the day.


	4. PJ Isn't the New Girl Anymore

**AN: You know, I never would've guessed that we were getting another Ronaldo episode before we found out where they were keeping the Roaming Eye. Also, how come the police didn't track Topaz with the 5 different global positioning systems on the phones of the people she abducted?**

* * *

"Steven, a question."

"Sure PJ, what's up?"

"Do the Crystal Gems have a splinter cell?"

"No, why?"

"Then who are the Rock People?"

"The who?"

"Rock People. I read about them in this."

"Lessee… weapons from the mud dimension… cultural war on our livelihood… THEY HATE MEN? MAKE BEACH CITY WEIRD AGAIN?! RONALDO!"

* * *

Regret is a bitter taste. It lasts longer than it is welcome, and it's not a flavor that I recommend. Steven's the kind of gem that never shuts up, but at least he _listens_ to others in the room. Ronaldo is just… well, he defies description. His ego is inescapable. Him? A bloodstone? Ha! Everybody knows that bloodstones just do what aquamarines do, only that bloodstones do the job better, and don't let Blue Diamond's kiss-ups tell you otherwise. Unlike aquamarines, bloodstones double-check their work, and have the courtesy to lock the door afterwards. Sure, they don't have that fancy-schmancy zero-point energy beam bullshit, but they can at least take a punch or two before going down. And unlike Ronaldo, _real_ bloodstones pay respect to their superiors.

I can't help but blame Ronaldo's entrance into our lives on myself, though. It's not only that I showed the pamphlet to Steven, but also my empathy senses tell me that the Crystal Gems are comparing Ronaldo's antics to my own. Ronaldo triggers a defense mechanism within them, something that's been built up over the centuries living with humans. I see faces flash inside their minds, humans that died fighting with them in the rebellion. They've also seen the humans that came after them, and the gems summarize their experiences with broad strokes.

 _Ronaldo's ambitious, like Cortez._

 _Ronaldo's selfish, like Xerxes._

 _Humans always scramble to prove themselves, don't they? Reminds me of that one lady who lost her arm and still chased after Rose._

 _He'll be gone in a week. Maybe a decade or two. You never know with humans. He could catch the plague any day now._

Everytime I speak, however, I trigger something less passive. Mistrust. Fear. Suspicion. Thoughts that they can't afford to brush aside like the ones they have about humans.

 _Why's she doing that?_

 _What's her gain today?_

 _Steven, be careful._

* * *

I'm stargazing on the porch again, this time with 'Bloodstone.' Well, according to him, we're standing guard. It's the most exciting assignment he's had yet, albeit it was one he assigned upon himself. He props his feet up on the outdoor table, slumping with visual exhaustion, but not exhausted enough to make an effort to look confident.

"So," he says, "Are there any male gems on your planet?"

"Nope," I say, popping my lips.

"Did they, like, die out or something, or are are you all like the gerudos?"

"The gord-o's?"

"Buff ladies that live in the desert," he smiles. "They have a boy born into their tribe every hundred years, but I'll have to check the wiki on that detail."

"Why don't just ask one?"

"They're just from a video game,"

"Ah. No, we're not like that."

"So… you ever thought about being with man?" Ugh, he thinks he's being clever. "You know, for the experience of being on Earth."

"Have you?"

His face changes to the color of my hair. "No, not in particular! I'm trying to patch things up with my girlfriend, actually. See, there was this war over junk food and capitalism, and Steven wanted to fix things via Romeo and Juliet, because true love conquers all, right? Only that it _wasn't_ true love, because we were faking it. Anyway, Jane and I were at the delicate, early stages in our relationship. Y'know, past that stage when you're trying showcase your best qualities to your S.O. like you're having a job interview every week, but not at the part when you move in together and can make the decision to have sex or just binge-watch _Pretty Pretty Death Crusaders,_ because you can just have sex _anytime you want_. Like, what's the rush?" At this point, I'm hoping that a stray meteorite crashes into me from out of the sky, just so I don't have to listen to this sad, sad man anymore. Ooo, or it could crash into him instead; that works, too. I scan the sky absently.

And I hear a distant scream.

Good news, bad news, good news: Good news, the meteorite is not hypothetical anymore. Bad news, it misses us. Good news, it stops Ronaldo from talking anyway.

"INVADER!" Ronaldo cries, noticing that the meteorite is vaguely humanoid in shape. He draws his sword and changes, only to trip and fall down half of the staircase. "MAN DOWN, MAN DOWN!" I ignore him and skip the stairs with a leap. Sure, I could heal him, but that would mean crying over him, and Steven spitting on him in the near future is _much_ more likely.

At the center of the sand-crater, a ruby is curled up in a ball. My list of question rushes in a few more members for the evening: How'd she end up in the atmosphere? Her insignia shows that she's with Yellow Diamond, so does she know Peridot? Most importantly, why only _one_ ruby? I don't care how long I've been bubbled, rubies are _never_ supposed to be alone. Every part of their physiology, every thought put their combat strategy, and every aspect of their personality is supposed to work in a group. The only explanation is that she was separated from the others.

Steven is the first to join me. "It's Navy!"

"Oh, so she's one of yours?" I assume.

"No, they came on a spaceship a while back to-" Navy charges, and Steven is forced to put up a bubble before he finishes, but I heard 'spaceship.' The fact that Navy has crashed here is a sure sign that the ship isn't in one piece, but I want to remain optimistic. Navy clings to what little friction the bubble has, pleading.

"Please let me stay with you!"

Um.

I more behind on this situation than I thought.

* * *

"Lesson one about being an earthling," Peridot begins confidently, "is that nobody understands what being an earthling is about."

"Amazing," Navy says wistfully. The other two members of the audience aren't as absorbed. Ronaldo fell asleep on the car ride over here, and I'm trying to sneak a peek at the Roaming Eye they have parked out in the opposite direction of the chalkboard.

"Any questions?"

"Yes, is that just for decoration?" I ask. "There is, like, a lot of stuff out here that looks like it's for show, and I was a little confused."

"The Roaming Eye?" Peridot laughed like an agate did when she was showing off her new form. "It's perfectly functional, albeit rarely used. We still have some kinks to work out, like-" She coughs. "-how to fly it."

Navy turns around. "Oh, you still have that? I didn't notice. Bloodstone, look! That's the ship I came here with. It's so pretty now!"

"Bwuh?" snorts Ronaldo, suddenly awoken. He examines the ship for a second. "Big deal. I was dressing up alien weirdness as my own aesthetic before it was even cool. You guys need to be more original."

"Why is he here again, Steven?" Lapis half-wonders, half-accuses. "He's already human, he doesn't need to be taught about Earth."

"In that case, maybe _I_ should be teaching this class," Ronaldo half-offers, half-defends.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Steven interjects. "Peridot and Lapis put a lot of work into this."

"Fine," Ronaldo says, and goes back to sleep.

"Do _you_ know how to fly the ship, Navy?" I ask.

My empathy senses pick a whisper. _Keep a lid on it, or we'll_ both _be in trouble._ Navy says aloud, "But Pee-Jaaay, there's so much else on this base that I want to learn about~ I already know that boring old thing inside and out."

"You do?" gasps Steven. "You could totally be our pilot!" Bless your oblivious heart, Steven.

Navy places one index finger to her cheek. "I dunno, that sounds like a lot of trust you'd have to put in me, and I don't think I'm well-adjusted enough on this planet to handle that kind of pressure."

"Could've fooled me," grumbled Lapis. Oh, and Lapis has been being a bitch today, because she's capable of putting two and two together. Forgot that was happening.

"Yeah Navy, don't be hard on yourself," chirps Peridot, making a gesture that I've come to understand as a 'finger gun.' "You're our best student yet." The Crystal Gem's Peridot is… strange. Usually, peridots have three values: The satisfaction of hard work paying off, the diamonds, and everybody pronouncing it 'perry-dough' for reasons they refuse to explain clearly. Everything and everybody else is a nuisance. This peridot is just as arrogant, but does so in a cheerful (and an unnecessarily loud) manner.

Steven starts chant "joy ride" while pounding his fists on an imaginary table, and of course, Peridot joins in.

Navy covers her face with her hands with an "Aw, shucks," but I feel a wave of ecstatic bliss from her.

* * *

Steven's grip on the ship is slipping, and though I understand why he's crying, I'm still the one blocking the doorway.

"Whyyyy?!" he wails.

I've actually been mulling over what to say in this conversation before Navy even landed here. I knew this question would come up, and I've been trying to come up with something that doesn't sound ungrateful. I give Steven my speech's rough draft.

"Because we don't love Earth, Steven. We never wanted this place to be our home. I already had a planet, friends, and a diamond before your mother came along, and a lot of those can't be replaced on Earth." The roar of the wind makes me raise my voice, and I struggle to keep my tone steady.

"PJ, please! You don't have to do this!"

" _Yes, I do_. You didn't get a replacement for your dad, and I don't want a replacement for the other roses."

Steven looks like I stabbed him in the gut, but he's stumped for what to say back.

"I've said what I want to say. One of you can fly, one of you can float down, one's a human that probably won't survive the fall, but I doubt anyone will miss him. You'll all be fine. Goodbye, Steven Universe." I step on his fingers. He lets go. The door closes. I turn around and say to my pilot, "Thank you."

Navy just huffs. "Now why didja have to hog the spotlight back there? _I_ wanted to rant about my motive, too." Her voice doesn't stop having a sweet cadence to it, even when she's genuinely upset now. I can guess how she talks like everything's sunshine and rainbows now: Nobody takes her seriously anyway. But unfortunately, since the only thing between me and the cold vacuum of space is her ship, I have to take _every_ word of her's seriously. I am completely at her mercy, and besides the unspoken goal of getting off Earth, we have no reason to trust each other.

I've never been more terrified of a single entity in my life. This one ruby was worse than Onion.

"Yyyyeah, sorry about the whole speech thing with Steven," I begin as the warp drive starts to distort my form. "Let's start over: My name's Rose, and I need someone to drop me off at the zoo."

Navy gives me a cold smile that a predator might give to its lunch before biting the head off. "Say 'Pretty please with the shards our enemies one top~'"


End file.
